SMEs must believe in building brand than just selling product: Bomble

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Saurabh Gupta | 23 Oct, 2013
A small and medium enterprise (SME) owner must believe in building a brand than just selling a product, said Ad-Guru - Sandeep Bomble, Founder & Creative Director, Palasa Creative Place.

Palasa Creative Place is a Mumbai-based ad agency set up in 2004 by Sandeep Bomble, better known as 'Bomble' in the advertising circuit. Recently the agency has bagged Streax Xenoh Deodorant brand and has also released their TV campaign featuring Rannvijay Singh.

Bomble is a well known creative force and is a proud product of the reputed Sir. J. J. Institute of Applied Art. His advertising experience encompasses 9 years at Ogilvy & Mather (now Ogilvy) followed by 5 years at J. Walter Thompson. He has won more than 100 awards nationally and internationally, and has been associated with some of the most successful advertising campaigns - Pond's Institute, Nakshatra, Collection G, Onida Black, Maharashtra Tourism etc to name a few.

In an exclusive interview to SME Times, Bomble has spoken about his journey and meat & potatoes of advertising world for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Excerpts of the interview...

Pease tell our readers more about your group - Palasa Creative Place.
Sandeep Bomble: Palasa is an energetic hub with clients spanning various verticals, from technology to lifestyle products. What started as small agency of five creatives in 2004 is today a well-established, dependable communication partner for many medium and large brands.

The USP of the agency is its energy. There is never a dull moment at Palasa and the office is always vibrant with 'hulchul'. Palasa in its almost 6 years of existence has successfully cultivated a breeding ground for young talent. Palasa makes its presence felt in the advertising arena by its cutting edge communication solutions and a bevy of awards including New York Festivals, ABBYs, as well as work featured occasionally in Archive.

Palasa is a town in Andhra Pradesh!...(please correct me if I am wrong). What is the meaning of yours PALASA or is there some interesting story over choosing this name?
Sandeep Bomble: Yes, but our name has nothing to do with the town. Palasa, as the legend goes, is one of the seven most sacred trees in Hindu religion and the favourite flower of Durga; a creative outfit with its energies focused on communication and advertising.

Advertising has always been a creative profession. Talking of creativity, how has the quality of ads in India evolved over the past 14 years?
Sandeep Bomble: Advertising is one of the most important facets of any product. But as a new age of technology driven advertising dawns upon us it is very important to understand that the mindset of the consumers and marketing mediums have changed to a great extent. It is thus necessary to keep up with the latest trends that are taking over consumers. Advertisers are now playing smart in the media where their brand's ads are being consumed.

Earlier just TV Commercials supported by print campaigns would serve the purpose of selling the product, but today this is not sufficient. Mere print ads and TVCs will be forgotten by people in a matter of seconds. Thus advertisers have become smarter in their approach and have started opting for more targeted digital advertising, possibly through social media.

Almost spending 9 years in Palasa, what all changes you find in trends and way of ad making?
Sandeep Bomble: Earlier creativity was constrained due to lack of technological advancement. Technology has certainly become an easy medium for referencing if you are stuck, whereas 15-12 years back the creative artists would depend on books, sourcing references from libraries.

Today, digitalization is the latest mantra that advertisers are treading on. It is now a must to understand how best digital mediums can be harnessed for optimal effect. The digital aspect of advertising is becoming more and more important.

The advantage of digital advertising is that you can accurately measure responses in digital media whether it is a Facebook banner, text message, digital billboard asking for an immediate response or an interactive You-Tube video. You can easily make out whether there is any interaction between the target audience and the ads or whether the target audience is simply ignoring your ads whereas earlier it was difficult to keep a tab on audience's responses.

Any interesting story about your ad making that you would like to share with us.
Sandeep Bomble: Some 2 years back we had come up with a sporty clothing line called Restless Action Wear for a gym brand. And we realised then that an energy drink with the name Restless simply had so much potential. Restless seemed like an idea made for an energy drink and with that thought began our ad campaigns with a launch of an energy drink called Restless Action Drink.

How important is advertising in building a brand?
Sandeep Bomble: For most products or services, a brand cannot grow into a large brand without the support of advertising. Starbucks and Lush are exceptions to this rule of thumb but this is true for most other brands.

In these changing times and trends, what is the latest trend catching up in the ad world?
Sandeep Bomble: Promotion through digital media has increased to a great extent. It has revolutionised the way in which we find and consume information.

You must have some SME clients in your portfolio. How you see small and medium enterprises (SMEs) about choosing an advertising company?
Sandeep Bomble: SMEs should do a thorough background research of the agencies they intend to work with. They should know the people who will be handling their brand and what experience does the agency have in building a brand. SMEs should also keep in mind that people who are fresh and just out of college can surely be good in designing but they may not have experience enough to build your brand.

Our majority of readers are SMEs. Keeping them in mind, what is the cheap and the best ad media for them?
Sandeep Bomble: Digital media

How you see the internet as an advertising platform? What are your views on another exploding media - Social Media?
Sandeep Bomble: Internet has made advertising more focused and interactive. Advertisers can be more direct and personalized with their approaches and they can even get the consumer feedback instantly. The consumers even recommend and spread brand awareness much faster and easily. Also internet has made the global reach possible which again is only in favour of advertisers.

The social media platform has made direct interaction with the company possible with consumers who want to share their product experiences. They like being offered promotional offers, freebies, coupons, etc. The online virals trend is also fast catching on these days. Thus the goal for a lot of advertising is to become a trending video on YouTube, which in turn creates a good word of mouth buzz for the brand.

Do you agree that internet and social media are some how eating the market share of ad agencies? your views.
Sandeep Bomble: If you talk about agencies that are specialized only in traditional media then yes, it is certainly affecting them. That's why with changing trends advertising agencies are open to internet and social media ideas. The agencies that have moved on with the trends are not affected by the digital trends as they know how to efficiently incorporate social media in their campaigns too.

What are your future plans?
Sandeep Bomble: Our future plans are to persuade our clients who do mainly traditional advertising to also try out digital advertising as these will become more and more important in future in an always on world.

Any advertising tip for our SMEs.
Sandeep Bomble: Believe in building a brand than just selling a product.